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The land of no self-hate – episode 5

I woke up this morning and against all odds tried to love myself. Now I think to know this self-hate and destructive behaviour is an addiction as well, things start to fall into place. So now I continue practising liking me, not hating me. Had some lousy tries and some good ones. I also had difficulty concentrating because of the upcoming ‘we need to speak’ talk with the hug-buddy.

I did however have some help in liking myself from the hug-buddy. And I had some insight in the absurd workings of the Universe. AGAIN! It works out the hug-buddy has not only been addicted to alcohol, he also had/has a sex addiction. Hugging does not set his fixation off, it relaxes him. Other things do. He never went into treatment for either of them. He ‘did a geographical’ – moved a few countries away from his abusive wife several years ago and it worked.

To the Universe: how on earth did I, from all the guys in that factory, find the one and only addict? And on my two ‘favorite’ subjects?! And how to continue?

When we are together we hug and touch and relax and do some relatively innocent sexy stuff. I keep my pants on AND my everywhere hair unshaven – unshaven EVERYWHERE. awkward? Yup. Deliberately awkward because I don’t want to cross borders I do not want to cross yet or at all. I think I need to learn not only to say no, but also to say yes. And do so from the start, not as an afterthought. I am not there yet – dealing with shame, unease and lack of practice.

The hug-buddy is very good at saying what he likes and how he likes it. I want that too. So, that is my practise. I made it his practise that he learns to touch me as I touch him – he likes the way I touch. They all do, I seem to have magic hands – said the boundariless addict I also like the way I touch better than how a lot of other people touch. So he needs to learn to touch and really be present in that touch, at that place, at that moment. It is so cool to feel him (try to) do that and not have grabby hands which only take and think of satiation.

Lucky him and me…. of all the women he could have chosen I am one who can sense change from non-sex to curious sex, to needy sex, to single-minded taking sex, to disrespectful sex within a second wherever it may happen in the body, mind, feelings or intentions.

He says touching like stroking and massaging of the non sexual areas is ok. So we did that and suddenly, because of the newly found trust in each other it all spun out of control. I do feel alive now. 😀 Yesterday I was looking to feel alive. I do now. However I do not feel proud of having let myself go feeling wise. Nothing happened, but we did put quite some gasoline on the fire so to say.

He says: “If I go into the sex mode I end up drinking and having financial problems in no time.” So what kind of woman am I that…? Well. Ha! Addict trap 2109: “I will help you with this….” And still: my whole body, mind, aura is alive with expectation and desire. Both not good words in the addict world.

If anybody has a title for a book on how to deal with sex-addiction I would be grateful. I notice that I want to think I have it ‘all worked out’ myself already (not!) but I’m not sure if that is helpful. It actually feels very egocentric of me somehow. Possibly because the addict in me wants to make a pact with his addict ‘because it feels good’. I really, really, really need to get a grip on this because I do not want to take him down because he makes me feel good.

Second thing that happened; he did his ‘we need to talk thing’ and probably a lot of the energy he had put in building up fences fell away. So the next layer came lose: enormous dislike, anger, almost hatred of women of his own age (he is more than a decade younger). I can imagine what he is experiencing; he is tremendously handsome in a ‘Disney prince without a dime, all alone in the world’ kind of way. Girls latch onto that like crazy. But princess attract princesses and those all want something of him; very aggressive, very demanding and very demeaning when he does not give them what they want. Something in that dynamic must have its influence on how he looks upon women.

And now he has given me the feeling of being alive and a basis for loving myself again. And I want that. But at what cost to him? And can self-love filled in by the other? Or is it absurd of me to expect to be able to do everything on my own? Yes Ainsobriety: I am overthinking here. 😀

The addict within me says: “But geeeeez! I just want to be happy!” But I’m guessing there is no ‘just’ anymore when I want to stay sober and I want him to be stable. But am I at this stage using my co-dependency to ‘help him’ and feel better myself? Or should I stop overthinking and go with the flow? Ooooh, no no no no no no nooooooo – hair on, pants on, brain on. Agenda for the next meeting with the hug-buddy: where are the boundaries, what is the safety zone. What happens if these are crossed (playing the tape forward). How to stop us from crossing the safety zone.

Ok, I could have made this a shorter post and some of it is redundant but then I would not have experienced these corners of my feelings/wishes/thoughts. I guess that’s it. By writing stuff down I get to go to the next door behind I find other, new stuff.

So much for today. I am grateful that I do not drink. Today very much so because it made that I have insight in addiction and e.g. did not laugh at the hug-buddy when he came out of his closet about this. Also this gives me a good reason to more structurally work on myself because I do not want to take him down because of my self-hate.

Because of self-hate I need/would like to use others to love me. Sex is an easy way to get my claws into somebody. And I noticed today that I am familiar with this track and that we can both run down this track very easily. When I do not hate myself I do not want to use people to fulfill my needs for love. I hope. They say that is how it works. 😉